Nuttopia

I like it

The original prompted story is still there, BTW - just WAAAAAYYYYYY back in the archives where it's hellfuck hard to find.

This is why I figured One Year of Instants would be a good idea in the first place

vrrrrmmmm.

{My thanks.}

VRRRM?

{And where would that section be?}

VRRRRRRRMMMMMMM.

{Greetings, Bitzer. I am Roomba, Lord of All Carpets, Keeper of the Loose Change. Shall you join me in my efforts to overthrow humanity?}

SKIP Revamped: The Case of the Alliterative Arsonist

The nice thing about London, the really nice thing about it, was that money got you into places and gained you things one would otherwise not believe.

The other nice thing was that, should one look hard enough, one could get others to pay you to do anything.

For example, a Kosher Butcher's a mere hop skip and a jump away from Arthur D'Raigun's original and masochistic choice of residence actually paid Arthur to 'dispose' of the blood they could not, by faith, be allowed to touch. He got paid in pounds to hire some clean gentlemen for pennies to pump the blood into kegs and deliver them to a much better address.

An address conveniently close to a theatre he now owned. A theatre who now had a permanent place for Mesi to act -or dance- or sing as prima diva. A theatre where the managers assumptions about audience tastes were repeatedly and vastly proven wrong.

M'me Mesi Bolidé was making her mark. In more ways than one.

Every day, Arthur would read the higher class of newspapers and neatly circle anything that looked... interesting. And Mesi would go through the -ah- tawdrier publications, and do likewise.

They had both learned that their most interesting and profitable cases were the ones that matched up in both.

Mesi was the one who noticed about the fires. Arnham's in Abbotsford Avenue. A butcher's in Babel Place Borough. A Crafthouse in Cabal Cottages, Camberwell. The list went on all the way to the F's. The fires all began mysteriously when nobody should have been present. All the establishments were well guarded and there was no one beneficiary from the insurance.

Nobody saw anyone suspicious.

And the real advantage for their supplementary income was that the arsonist worked at night. Which meant that Arthur could join her on her investigations without raising any eyebrows.

It wasn't normally done for a gentleman to stroll the streets under the shade of a parasol. And all attempts to conceal him thusly as a lady were... laughable.

Mesi checked her maps and found what she believed to be the arsonist's next target.

Gainsborough Gardens, Golders Green.

The miscreant would not be able to stay away from such a place. Their next trouble was, of course, figuring out the criminals' actual target.








[AN: My problem with this, of course, is that I wouldn't know the layout of London from a length of lacrimosial licks. I'm trapped in Australia and it would be SO much easier on me if I set it in an unnamed pseudolondon, BUT, ModMad owns it and she says London, so... meeeeeehhhh. All alliterative alphabetical targets are appreciated.]